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Thursday, May 9, 2013

The New HTC One

...a beauty


     The new HTC One is stunning. A brilliant display, sleek and stylish body and of course HTC's own take on Android, HTC Sense, make this phone a must have if you're looking for an upgrade or are just getting tired of your old device. There is a few drawbacks in comparison to some other phone out there but are they enough to put the HTC One on the back burner? I don't think so.


Design and Style

     HTC has given the One a zero gap design meaning that there are no 'real' visible gaps in the body just clean lines where the whole unit it put together and it is magnificent. The body itself is crafted and yes, I do mean crafted from aluminum so it is nice and stirdy in yours hands giving the phone a well-put-together feel. The aluminum body does add slightly to the 143grams of the HTC One also making it a little thick too at 9.3mm while the rest of the dimensions are about average at 137.4mm tall and 68.2mm wide.
     Buttons are on the top and sides of the bezel and they are quite blended so as to no protrude out and be and eyesore which in turn makes them feel very clean as well as looking clean. The entire design does though remind me a little of the iPhone 5 yet not enough to really compare them. The outer shape of course but than who can really patent a rounded rectangle (Apple apparently), but the resemblance is more from the black even spacing above and below the display. Now HTC has managed to create a very symmetrical look by adding speaker grills to both the top and bottom of the front face to distinguish the HTC One from its counter parts.
     The rear camera is central on the back top of the phone with dedicated flash where as the front facing camera is located top right on the face with the led and ambient sensor on the top left of the face. All together this is a wonderful phone to see and aside from the iPhone 5 there really isn't much to compare the design and build to.



Hardware

     Right, so lets get to it you say. Just what is inside this new HTC One? Well, for starters how about a quad core 1.7ghz Snapdragon 600 paired with and Adreno 320gpu? In some benchmarks the HTC One has managed to push the famed Galaxy S4 to second place and its likely just because the Adreno is designed to run alongside a Snapdragon plain and simple.
     Working with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 and the Adreno 320gpu is 2GB of ddr2 ram in order to ensure a smooth experience. Now I did try to find out just what spped that memory is but I came up short in my findings. I do however know that the Snapdragon 600 is capable of addressing ddr3 800mhz ram but that is not what's inside the HTC One so, I would assume and it might be wrong of me to do so but my best guess would be ddr2 533mhz.
     You will also get all the goodies like Bluetooth and WiFi (on just about every channel), gyroscope and all the other stuff youve become accustome to in the use of your smartphone.


Display

     The display on the new HTC One is so crystal clear its unbelievable. HTC has mannage to pack 468ppi into this 4.7 inch full HD 1920x1080 display.
This lcd3 Gorilla Glass display has better color reproduction and faster pixel responce than your average smartphone display and it will not dissapoint. At only 4.7 inches it actually looks much larger than it really is thanks to the super clear pictures it produces.










Camera and Features

     HTC has given us what they call the Ultra Pixel camera and this is where I tend to see some lack luster performance. Now its not to say that the camera is all bad just that it could be a lot better had HTC decided to go with a slightly higher mega pixel count.
Low light. iPhone 5 left, HTC One right. Source: imore.com
The HTC One's camera is no slouch in low light settings where this 4mp sensor can pick up more light thanks to its larger size but when we get out into clear and ideal lighting scenarios HTC's Ultra Pixel just cant keep up. Colors are reproduced quite well and focus is plenty fine but the clarity of the photos are just not up to par with today's smartphones. Had HTC produced the Ultra Pixel using and 8mp sensor well that I think would be a sight to see! A really good read on the camera can be found here at imore.com where the HTC's Ultra Pixel camera is pitted against the iPhone's camera.
     HTC's new camera features are quite useful as you would very soon find out the first time someone blinked during a photo.
The camera will actullly take a series of photos
when the shutter is pressed and create a live album
from them, you can then choose one that you like
best.
iPhone 5 left, HTC One right. Source: imore.com
     Some things like a removable battery and a micro sd card are a no go on the new HTC One which is a bit of a disappointment. I personally like the ability of swapping out my sd card to transfer files if necessary or just having my files stored on the micro for when I connect the device to a computer. You wouldn't really need a removable sd card thanks to the 32/64GB of storage that's packed inside the HTC One but then again with the way we take all our pictures, music and movies with us these days you may find yourself running out of storage in time.




     If what you're looking for is a beautiful, functional, snappy phone with a brilliant display this is the one you should choose. Now on the other hand, if you 'need' a better quality camera then this might not be the right choice for you since there are a few phones out there on the market that can give the HTC One a run for its money and have a better camera.

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